


A Murder of One

by Flywoman



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Abduction, Adultery, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-06-08
Updated: 1998-06-08
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flywoman/pseuds/Flywoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Musings of Mulder's Other Mother. Post-"Paper Hearts."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Murder of One

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Elizabeth Christine Mulder was created by Rebecca Toolan and  
> the MFAC Chris Carter, and I'm sure they would rather not hear about this  
> so let's keep it our little secret. Some of this has been said before in  
> "Therapy" by Amperage and "Here's to You, Mrs. Robinson," by Amy but no  
> plagiarism is intended. There are also scraps borrowed from Anne Sexton,  
> Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, and the Counting Crows.
> 
> Dedication: To the Riot Grrls and the rest of my vocal sistren in the  
> OBSSE, for reminding me about fairy tales and twelve-year-old girls.

He came to me the other day, agitated, teetering on the new edge of  
some reopened chasm. Well, not to me, precisely, and it was  
precisely that that hurt. I found him standing forlornly at the bottom of  
the basement steps, his eyes flickering from one dim corner to another  
like a trapped animal's. He was looking for a vacuum cleaner, I recall  
that much. He never did tell me why. And he was clutching those scraps  
of cotton cloth like they were the Dead Sea Scrolls. Asked me if I  
recognized them. "From where?" He refused to say. I was made to feel  
like it was a crime that I couldn't remember. Two faded floral patterns  
out of the overflowing ragbag that my mind had become.

The knight married her  
and she wore gowns as lovely as kisses  
and ate goose liver and peaches  
whenever she wished.

I was a Radcliffe scholar before I met Bill. I sank deep into my  
books and my dreams for four years, and then I surfaced to a brave new  
world. I was young, timid, beautiful and unsure - the perfect catch.  
Marriage was a passing ship that trapped me in its wake. Bill steered us  
through parental furor with keen slanted eyes and a flattering tongue. I  
had never heard anything sweeter than my nickname in his mouth.  
We moved into the house on Martha's Vineyard and Bill was promoted  
in the State Department. I sat and waited at the window and my  
papers and worn leather volumes became rimed with dust. Marriage  
taught me many things, but most of all it taught me to forget. Somehow I  
handed down my eidetic memory to my son and saved nothing for myself.

Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool  
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.  
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band  
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.

He first came to me in the nick of time, just as I was beginning to  
despair: I had expected marriage to bring me something, a new life, a safe  
haven, a purpose, not realizing how much it would end up taking away. Fox  
was *my* project; that was something that Bill could never understand. He  
was a secret warmth deep in my bowels, and later a vigorous  
self-proclaiming kick that threatened to shatter my heart.

I'm no more your mother  
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow  
Effacement at the wind's hand.

He refused to breastfeed, my Fox. I remember the day we brought him  
home from the hospital for the first time; I had read all those books and  
convinced myself that natural milk would be best for my baby, my tremulous  
newborn. And I clutched him firmly to my swollen breast, but he would  
have none of it. Only scant days old, barely separated from my flesh, and  
yet he fought me, squirming and whimpering and grimacing against the  
nipple. Bill laughed at first, then grew angry. It was all I could do,  
still weak and clouded from the drugs and the delivery, to juggle a  
lukewarm bottle and two furious little boys. I remember those days  
clearly. One cry, and I would stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral in  
my Victorian nightgown. I would sit up in the rocker in the dark hours  
before dawn, cradling Fox against the soreness and wondering if my milk  
carried the acrid tang of my sins.

Blue morning Blue morning,  
Wrapped in strands of fist and bone  
Curiosity, Kitten, doesn't have to mean you're on your own.

We had to be very careful when Fox was little. He was so bright and  
inquisitive. So full of energy. I would run myself ragged trying to keep  
up with him, and the end of most days found me sprawled on the couch,  
nodding over a soothing glass of wine. When Bill was home, he'd take Fox  
off my hands sometimes so that I could curl up for a few minutes of quiet  
and dream about having a demure little daughter one day. But I don't  
think Bill kept as close an eye on his son as I. I've never seen a  
child who managed to acquire as many scrapes and bruises as Fox did when  
Bill was supposed to be watching him. Of course, Bill wasn't home very  
often once Fox started walking. It's no wonder the boy started talking so  
early, and so well. Often I would go for days without speaking to anyone  
else. Under those circumstances, any woman would get lonely. It crept up  
on me slowly, almost unnoticeably. But the problem with the inevitable is  
that it always happens.

And then the dwarf appeared  
to claim his prize.  
Indeed! I have become a papa!  
cried the little man.  
She offered him all the kingdom  
but he wanted only this -  
a living thing  
to call his own.

Everything changed when Samantha was born. I know that Bill suspected,  
and yet he doted on his daughter, and his hand never held anything for her  
but candy and caresses. Somehow he pulled the right strings to get more  
time in Massachusetts, more time at home, and he'd drive us into Boston on  
the weekends, to see theatre and the museums. How he loved Samantha, that  
fierce, fearless tiger cub, so unlike his wan wife. I remember the day  
she fell from the swing and broke her collarbone: her attempts to  
console her wailing brother while Bill sped to the hospital, each  
jarring bump in the road revealed in the tightening of white tooth  
on lower lip but no tears. Bill claimed that Fox had pushed her too hard,  
that was his excuse for two kids in the ER at once. And then there was  
the day that I don't remember, that I've finally succeeded in *not*  
remembering after years of effort. He came back to claim his own, and the  
choice was made, but not by me. Another trip to the hospital. It had  
become like a second home, or a favorite hotel. We checked in and checked  
out with a regularity that had ceased to astonish me.

There were days that I woke up screaming and went to bed screaming and  
would have been hard pressed to say afterwards if anything else  
had happened in between.

One day when Fox was thirteen, I went into his room to vacuum and found a  
big box of food hidden under his bed. There was no rhyme or reason to the  
contents, just a haphazard jumble of canned fruit and tuna and chocolate  
bars. I asked him about it at dinner. Those eyes went down and that  
lower lip went out and he mumbled, "It's nothing."

Bill was still with us then and his temper had grown shorter than ever in  
recent months. "Answer your mother," he snarled, banging his fist on the  
table so that the tumblers danced.

Fox stiffened, glanced away, then shrugged. His face stilled, and he  
turned and gazed evenly at Bill. "I'm saving it, Mom. In case I wake up  
someday and you and Dad are gone, too." I bit my tongue so hard it bled.  
Bill stood up without a word and unlatched the back door. He stalked  
deliberately to the toolshed, pulling his heavy belt slowly out of its  
loops. Fox did not look at me, but excused himself in a polite monotone  
and followed his father.

I scalded my left hand doing the dishes and broke three plates that night.  
Bill moved out the next day. The week before Fox came home from the  
hospital was strange. It was the first time that I had slept in silence,  
alone in our house. The last time, until Fox left for England,  
for college. Now, of course, I'm used to it.

Sometimes I think that it must be possible to get used to just about  
anything.


End file.
